198 entries categorized "Developing Technologies"

July 02, 2015

The New York Times reports when a draft of China’s new national security law was made public in May, critics argued that it was too broad and left much open to interpretation. In the final form of the law, which the government said Wednesday had been enacted, Beijing got more specific, but in a way that is sending ripples through the global technology industry. New language in the rules calls for a “national security review” of the technology industry — including network and other products and services — and foreign investment. The law also calls for technology that supports key sectors to be “secure and controllable,” a catchphrase that multinationals and industry groups say could be used to force companies to build so-called back doors — which allow third-party access to systems — provide encryption keys or even hand over source code.

April 29, 2015

BBC News reports a Russian spacecraft delivering supplies to the International Space Station (ISS) is out of control and will fall back to Earth, officials say. The unmanned cargo ship was launched from Kazakhstan on Tuesday, but contact was lost with it soon afterwards. Russia's space agency says Progress M-27M is now orbiting in an uncontrolled spin. It cannot reach the ISS and is likely to break up on re-entering Earth's atmosphere. The craft carried on to a higher orbit after contact was lost. Igor Komarov, the head of Russia's space agency, Roscosmos, said: "The craft's continued flight and its docking with the ISS is not possible."

April 10, 2015

The Washington Post reports the revolution in unmanned aerial flight has advanced quickly and in dramatic leaps, perhaps none more momentous than the historic landing of an autonomous Navy drone on an aircraft carrier. That happened for the first time two years ago, when Northrop Grumman’s X-47B, which looks more like a UFO than a military aircraft, took off and landed on the USS George H.W. Bush.It made history again last year, when it flew alongside F/A-18 fighter jets, the first time a drone flew in concert with piloted planes off a carrier. And later this month, the X-47B is expected to attempt what would be another aerial triumph: refueling midair by a tanker plane. But despite those breakthroughs, some powerful members of Congress and leading military think tanks say the Pentagon is being too cautious in its development of a technology that they think could push the boundaries of unmanned flight—and the future of warfare.

The New York Times reports late last month, China began flooding American websites with a barrage of Internet traffic in an apparent effort to take out services that allow China’s Internet users to view websites otherwise blocked in the country. Initial security reports suggested that China had crippled the services by exploiting its own Internet filter — known as the Great Firewall — to redirect overwhelming amounts of traffic to its targets. Now, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Toronto say China did not use the Great Firewall after all, but rather a powerful new weapon that they are calling the Great Cannon. The Great Cannon, the researchers said in a report published Friday, allows China to intercept foreign web traffic as it flows to Chinese websites, inject malicious code and repurpose the traffic as Beijing sees fit.

March 30, 2015

The Washington Post reports as Libya spiraled into chaos last year, U.S. Marines deployed there used a little-known computer application called KILSWITCH to map their routes and emergency plans. The program gave them not only detailed GPS-guided maps on handheld devices but targeting information and detailed maps of nearby compounds in case they came under fire. The application — spelled out as Kinetic Integration Lightweight Software Individual Tactical Combat Handheld — is part of a broader high-tech program known as Persistent Close Air Support (PCAS) launched to improve how U.S. troops under fire call for and receive close air support. But it hints at something larger: The Pentagon is rethinking how U.S. ground troops operate, with plans to push more information and technology on the battlefield to lower-ranking enlisted soldiers and Marines than ever before.

March 11, 2015

The Wall Street Journal reports the Central Intelligence Agency played a crucial role in helping the Justice Department develop technology that scans data from thousands of U.S. cellphones at a time, part of a secret high-tech alliance between the spy agency and domestic law enforcement, according to people familiar with the work. The CIA and the U.S. Marshals Service, an agency of the Justice Department, developed technology to locate specific cellphones in the U.S. through an airborne device that mimics a cellphone tower, these people said. Today, the Justice Department program, whose existence was reported by The Wall Street Journal last year, is used to hunt criminal suspects. The same technology is used to track terror suspects and intelligence targets overseas, the people said.

February 18, 2015

BBC News reports the U.S. has announced it will begin allowing sales of armed drones to some friendly and allied countries. Only the U.K. has been allowed to purchase armed unmanned aircraft. Other countries have unarmed craft. Countries purchasing drones must sign agreements they will only be used for military campaigns and the U.S. will review how the country is complying. The change comes amid China exporting drones from its own unmanned program to at least nine countries. In the newly published policy, the state department did not specify which countries would be considered for armed drone sales, but unnamed officials told U.S. media previous requests by Italy and Turkey would be reconsidered. U.S. lawmakers are also currently considering selling unarmed Predator drones to the United Arab Emirates.

January 29, 2015

The Wall Street Journal reports drones are becoming a tool for criminals and terrorists, worrying authorities who say the small unmanned aircraft are difficult to detect and stop, a concern heightened this week by the accidental crash of a drone at the White House. Law-enforcement officials have discovered criminals smuggling drugs and other contraband across the U.S. border and into prisons using the types of consumer drones increasingly popular with entrepreneurs and hobbyists. And authorities in the U.S., Germany, Spain and Egypt have foiled at least six potential terrorist attacks with drones since 2011.

January 15, 2015

Defense News reports the US Air Force is launching a wave of new initiatives aimed at bringing down the cost and time associated with acquiring new technologies, service secretary Deborah Lee James announced Wednesday. The initiatives are bundled together under the banner of "Bending the Cost Curve," a program title that comes with its own logo and the requisite BTCC acronym. The goal is to work more closely with industry in order to find solutions that work for both sides, James said during an event hosted at the Atlantic Council here in Washington. "We have got to stop spending more and more in order to get less and less, so what we have to do is bend that cost curve," James said.

November 24, 2014

BBC News reports an "extremely complex" and "stealthy" spying program has been stealing data from ISPs, energy companies, airlines and research-and-development labs, a security company has said. With a "degree of technical competence rarely seen", Regin had probably taken years to develop, Symantec said. And a nation state may have written it to serve its spying agencies' needs. The program had been used in "systematic spying campaigns" over the past six years, Symantec said. Aimed at Windows users, Regin slowly infiltrated its targets, taking care at each stage to hide its tracks, the company said. "Many components of Regin remain undiscovered and additional functionality and versions may exist," it added.

August 25, 2014

The Washington Post reports makers of surveillance systems are offering governments across the world the ability to track the movements of almost anybody who carries a cellphone, whether they are blocks away or on another continent. The technology works by exploiting an essential fact of all cellular networks: They must keep detailed, up-to-the-minute records on the locations of their customers to deliver calls and other services to them. Surveillance systems are secretly collecting these records to map people’s travels over days, weeks or longer, according to company marketing documents and experts in surveillance technology. The world’s most powerful intelligence services, such as the National Security Agency and Britain’s GCHQ, long have used cellphone data to track targets around the globe. But experts say these new systems allow less technically advanced governments to track people in any nation — including the United States — with relative ease and precision.

June 26, 2014

The New York Times reports the Obama administration’s embrace of targeted killings using armed drones risks putting the United States on a “slippery slope” into perpetual war and sets a dangerous precedent for lethal operations that other countries might adopt in the future, according to a report by a bipartisan panel that includes several former senior intelligence and military officials. The group found that more than a decade into the era of armed drones, the American government has yet to carry out a thorough analysis of whether the costs of routine secret killing operations outweigh the benefits. The report urges the administration to conduct such an analysis and to give a public accounting of both militants and civilians killed in drone strikes. The findings amount to a sort of report card — one that delivers middling grades — a year after President Obama gave a speech promising new guidelines for drone strikes and greater transparency about the killing operations.

June 23, 2014

The Washington Post reports more than 400 large U.S. military drones have crashed in major accidents around the world since 2001, a record of calamity that exposes the potential dangers of throwing open American skies to drone traffic, according to a year-long Washington Post investigation. Since the outbreak of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, military drones have malfunctioned in myriad ways, plummeting from the sky because of mechanical breakdowns, human error, bad weather and other reasons, according to more than 50,000 pages of accident investigation reports and other records obtained by The Post under the Freedom of Information Act. Commercial drone flights are set to become a widespread reality in the United States, starting next year, under a 2012 law passed by Congress. Drone flights by law enforcement agencies and the military, which already occur on a limited basis, are projected to surge.

December 16, 2013

12/16/13: The BBC reports Google has acquired the engineering company that developed Cheetah, the world's fastest-running robot and other animalistic mobile research machines. Boston Dynamics, which contracts for the US military, is the eighth robotics company snapped up by Google this year. Both the price and size of the project, which is led by former Android boss Andy Rubin, are being kept under wraps. However, analysts say the purchases signal a rising interest in robotics use by consumer internet companies. Online shopping portal Amazon, for example, recently announced plans to deploy a fleet of delivery drones. Boston Dynamics, which does not sell robots commercially, was founded in 1992 by a former professor from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It mostly develops mobile and off-road robotics technology, funded by the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or Darpa. Google has said it would honour the existing military contracts with Darpa. Boston Dynamics' videos of its walking robots have garnered millions of views online. One of them, called BigDog, is remarkably agile for a machine and is able to move over rough terrain such as snow and ice. Another, of a four-legged robot named WildCat, shows the noisy machine galloping down a car park at high speed and pivoting quickly on the spot.

December 12, 2013

Raytheon and Chemring announced plans earlier this year to develop a low-cost defensive anti-surface warfare system, specifically designed to counter fast inshore attack craft with the flexibility to be placed on everything from small patrol boats to large combatants. In a recent round of tests announced Tuesday, Chemring Countermeasures and Raytheon Missile Systems say they have successfully fired a Raytheon-Lockheed Martin Javelin missile from a prototype multi-role Centurion launcher. According to Raytheon, Centurion can offer rocket-propelled munitions, mortar-launched munitions and mortar-launched submunitions. The lightweight system has 12 individually-controlled barrels that are stored vertically on a rotating platform, giving it a small deck footprint. And it can be easily and rapidly loaded with any round.

Scientists at the University of Wollongong in Australia have developed a device that replaces traditional surgery with something more akin to an art project. The BioPen is a handheld 3D printer that can actually print bone directly onto patients during surgery. Soon, surgeons will simply be able to doodle their patients back to health.

On Tuesday, curiosity and expectations were ratcheted up significantly with the unveiling of NASA's Johnson Space Center entry, a humanoid robot called Valkyrie (R5). This is a 6-foot-two-inch, battery operated robot weighing 286 pounds with 44 degree of freedom. Valkyrie, as an entry in the DRC challenge, has to be something quite beyond a space robot; the challenge for the NASA team, as with all hopefuls in the DARPA challenge, is to present a robot that demonstrates critical improvements in what robots can do to help out in disaster relief efforts, when human intervention is unsafe and time is of the essence, such as nuclear power plant disasters, oil spills, and wildfires.

December 10, 2013

Spying could become much easier if a new lightweight, folding satellite concept gets off the ground. DARPA says it has plans to “break the glass ceiling” of space telescopes by shooting a new design into orbit that’s made of plastic and unfolds into a mammoth satellite that would dwarf the world’s most famous telescopes. DARPA’s Membrane Optical Imager for Real-Time Exploitation (MOIRE) program redesigns the traditional glass telescope into an orbital telescope that’s bigger and lighter than previous imaging satellites, making it easier to spy on larger areas and for longer periods of time. Launched as a tightly packed cluster of petals 20 feet in diameter, MOIRE stretches to 68 feet across once it reaches 22,000 miles above the earth. From orbit, MOIRE could view approximately 40 percent of the earth’s surface at once while recording high resolution images and video, making it the ultimate spying satellite (DARPA notes that it could also be beneficial in weather forecasting and disaster response).

No sooner had Amazon​.com founder Jeff Bezos announced plans to deliver small packages via flying drone than a well known hacker has released technical plans for an interceptor drone able to hijack other drones. Turning other people’s drones into zombies requires a Parrot AR.Drone 2.0 quadricopter, which weighs less than a pound, a Rasberry Pi, a USB battery, an Alfa AWUSO36H wireless transmitter, aircrack-ng, nod-ar-drone, node.js and Kamkar’s SkyJack software, Kamkar's claims.

Facebook unveiled plans Monday on a partnership with New York University for a new center for artificial intelligence, aimed at harnessing the huge social network's massive trove of data. The California-based tech giant named professor Yann LeCun of NYU's Center for Data Science to head up the project. The lab will work on "machine learning,"—a branch of artificial intelligence that involves computers "learning" to extract knowledge from giant data sets. LeCun, a French-born mathematician and computer scientist, said in a blog post that he was pleased to head up the project with "the ambitious, long-term goal of bringing about major advances in artificial intelligence."

December 09, 2013

12/09/13: The Miami Herald reports Iran has dramatically improved the accuracy of its ballistic missiles by using laser systems, its defense minister said Monday. In comments broadcast on state TV, Hossein Dehghan said Iranian missiles can now strike within two meters (yards) of their targets, compared to 200 meters (yards) previously. Iran frequently announces breakthroughs in military technology that are impossible to independently verify. But the Pentagon released a rare public report last June noting significant advances in Iranian missile technology, acknowledging that the Islamic Republic has improved the accuracy and firing capabilities of its missiles. Many of Iran's missiles use solid fuel, or a combination of both solid and liquid fuel, improving the accuracy of the weapons. Iran has a variety of missiles, some with a reported range of 1,200 miles, enough to reach much of the Middle East. Military commanders have described them as a strategic asset and a strong deterrent, capable of hitting US bases or Israel in the event of a strike on Iran. Commanders said Iran's capability of firing multiple missiles within seconds is another technological achievement by Iran's military. They say this would create a challenge for the US or Israel to intercept incoming missiles should a war break out.

December 06, 2013

Aviation week reports a large, classified unmanned aircraft developed by Northrop Grumman is now flying—and it demonstrates a major advance in combining stealth and aerodynamic efficiency. The ISR UAS, dubbed the RQ-180, is scheduled to enter production for the US Air Force and could be operational by 2015. Foreign Policy followed up with an article to put the new drone in context.

The US Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) with funding from SwampWorks at the Office of Naval Research (ONR) and the Department of Defense Rapid Reaction Technology Office (DoD/RRTO) demonstrated the launch of an all-electric, fuel cell-powered, unmanned aerial system (UAS) from a submerged submarine. From concept to fleet demonstration, this idea took less than six years to produce results at significant cost savings when compared to traditional programs often taking decades to produce results.

Perovskites, which are made from calcium titanium oxide, are currently being tested in solar cells with remarkable results. In tests, solar cells with perovskites, can convert twice as much energy as conventional solar cells. Even more importantly, perovskites are inexpensive to produce. Now, scientists are discovering a hidden talent of the material: that it can be used to make lasers. Scientists from the University of Toronto demonstrated the perovskites’ ability to make lasers by blasting them in spherical form with ultraviolet light. This light bounced around inside the spheres and came out at one frequency, as infrared laser light.

Four teams that built full robot hardware and software systems using their own funds qualified to join 13 other teams to compete in the DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC) Trials. The event will take place Dec. 20 and 21 at the Homestead-Miami Speedway in Homestead, Fla., where spectators can observe as the robots are tested on the capabilities that would enable them to provide assistance in future natural and man-made disasters.

After more tests completed last month, the Navy and Marines have decided that the RQ-21A Blackjack drone is worth the gamble. Naval Air Command officials awarded an $8.8 million contract last week to Boeing subsidiary Insitu for one low-rate initial production of an RQ-21A Blackjack UAV system that includes one aircraft, ground control stations, and launch and recovery equipment. What makes Blackjack attractive is its ability to adapt to different land and sea environments and tactical situations. The multi-mission Blackjack payload bays can be customized with visible-light imager, infrared cameras, communications and other tools.

December 04, 2013

Lots of buzz this week about deliveries with drones. Amazon said it's working on the so-called Prime Air unmanned aircraft project in its research and development labs. UPS could be considering drones "to bring packages quickly and cheaply from a major airport to city to pick-up centers in more remote locations..." Google has quietly acquired seven technology companies in an effort to create a new generation of robots. Speculation about Google’s intentions has stretched from fleets of robotic taxis moving people in urban areas to automated delivery systems.

Researchers at EPFL have managed to combine antennas and solar cells to work together with unprecedented efficiency in a near future. This is a first step towards more compact and more lightweight satellites. The technology could also be deployed in the autonomous antenna systems used in the aftermath of natural disasters. Traditionally, telecommunication antennas and solar cells have never really worked well together, as they have to function independently of each other in order to avoid interference.

The US Navy is deploying Raytheon's Standard Missile-6 for the first time, marking the initial operational capability milestone for the US Navy's newest, most advanced extended range area defense weapon.

Raytheon has delivered more than 50 SM-6 interceptors to the Navy under low-rate production contracts. In September, Raytheon won a contract for $243 million to build 89 new SM-6 interceptors, signaling the start of full-rate production.

Until now, 3D printing has been a polymer affair, with most people in the maker community using the machines to make all manner of plastic consumer goods, from tent stakes to chess sets. A new low-cost 3D printer developed by a team at MTU could add hammers to that list. The detailed plans, software and firmware are all freely available and open-source, meaning anyone can use them to make their own metal 3D printer.

What's the best place to conduct a conversation about a confidential or even classified matter? Surprisingly, probably not a conference room designed in accordance with acoustical criteria approved by the Department of Defense. While such "secret" rooms – intended to keep sensitive information out of the earshot of unauthorized listeners – might meet DOD standards, they offer less protection against snooping than is found in a luxury condo. So says Marlund Hale of Advanced Engineering Acoustics in Simi Valley, California, who evaluated the acoustic performance of several classified spaces. In particular, while the individual components of the secret spaces – such as floors, walls, doors, windows, air ducts – were up to snuff in laboratory testing, they didn't make the grade when pieced together to make a room.

12/04/13: The New York Times reports amid good cheer for completing a 20-year program, called Megatons to Megawatts, that has elminated enough highly enriched uranium to fuel about 19,000 warheads, the US policy on uranium enrichment — the same technology that is at the heart of the dispute with Iran — is a point of contention here, too, for much the same reason: the ambiguous overlap between the technology’s military and civilian use. The US does not need enrichment to make any new nuclear weapons, because it already has thousands of them. But the US could lose the ability to maintain its nuclear arsenal, many experts say, because its nuclear infrastructure is withering. The last American factory for enriching uranium that used American technology cl;osed in May. It was a victim, after 60 years, of changing technologies and economics. That plant was operated by USEC, a private company in Bethesda, Md. Now, USEC, with extensive government support, is developing a new kind of centrifuge that would have a military role by making low-enriched fuel for a Tennessee Valley Authority civilian reactor that produces a component of nuclear weapons.

December 02, 2013

12/02/13: The New York Times reports China’s latest display of ambition in space involves sending a Jade Rabbit roaming across the Bay of Rainbows. A rocket blasted off from southwest China early Monday, carrying the country’s first robotic lunar rover, the Jade Rabbit, which will explore a plain on the moon that, despite its colorful name, is a dark expanse of hardened lava. If successful, the Chang’e-3 mission will be China’s first “soft landing” on the moon — which allows a craft to operate after descending — and the first such landing by any country since 1976, when the Soviet Union sent a probe. The US is the other country that has mastered soft lunar landings, and the last American expedition on the moon’s surface was a manned visit in 1972. Chinese state-run television broadcast footage of the rocket’s untroubled launch and ascent into space, where the Chang’e-3 craft set off toward the moon. For China’s Communist Party under President Xi Jinping, such feats embody his rallying cry of a “Chinese dream” of patriotic unity under one-party rule, supported by technological advances and rising international stature.

November 30, 2013

11/30/13: RT reports Russia has launched its new state-of-the-art Novorossiysk submarine, which set sail from a St Petersburg shipyard to become the first of six diesel-electric stealth subs delivered to the Russian Black Sea fleet in the next two years. The Novorossiysk belongs to the Varshavyanka-class (Project 636), which is characterized by advanced stealth technology, making it virtually undetectable when submerged. The construction of the Novorossiysk at St Petersburg’s Admiralty Shipyards took over three years, beginning in August 2010. Construction was also started on two other Varshavyanka-class vessels – the Rostov-on-Don sub in November 2011 and the Stary Oskol in August 2012. Project-636 submarines are mainly intended for anti-shipping and anti-submarine missions in relatively shallow waters. Armed with 18 torpedoes and eight surface-to-air missiles, they have an extended combat range and can strike land, surface and underwater targets. The Novorossiysk and other subs of its class can reach a speed of 20 knots (37 kilometers per hour).

11/30/13: AP reports encrypted email, secure instant messaging and other privacy services are booming in the wake of the National Security Agency's recently revealed surveillance programs. But the flood of new computer security services is of variable quality, and much of it, experts say, can bog down computers and isn't likely to keep out spies. In the end, the new geek wars -between tech industry programmers on the one side and government spooks, fraudsters and hacktivists on the other- may leave people's PCs and businesses' computer systems encrypted to the teeth but no better protected from hordes of savvy code crackers.

November 27, 2013

December 20 is a big day for teams competing in the DARPA Robotics Challenge. The idea is to promote critical improvements in what robots can do to help out in disaster relief efforts, when human intervention is unsafe and time is of the essence, such as nuclear power plant disasters, oil spills, and wildfires. The challenge is for robots to be agile and responsive enough to move through such disaster zones and do needed rescue tasks. Enter Atlas, the six-foot two, 330-pound robot developed by Boston Dynamics. As part of the contest, DARPA has been furnishing some of the teams with Atlas units. The teams are expected to come to Florida prepared to put their Atlas robots through tough paces. The Atlas factor in the competition is interesting because it calls upon team scientists and engineers to give their robot its "brains."

A $500 "nano-camera" has been developed by researchers in the MIT Media Lab. The three-dimensional camera, could be used in medical imaging and collision-avoidance detectors for cars, and to improve the accuracy of motion tracking and gesture-recognition devices used in interactive gaming. The camera is based on "Time of Flight" technology like that used in Microsoft's recently launched second-generation Kinect device, in which the location of objects is calculated by how long it takes a light signal to reflect off a surface and return to the sensor. However, unlike existing devices based on this technology, the new camera is not fooled by rain, fog, or even translucent objects.

A microdrone that resembles a bird would be harder to spot, the thinking goes, rendering them almost as invisible to the enemy as the soldiers controlling them. Maveric has a bird-like profile with flexible wings, giving it the appearance of a raptor in flight. The drone, made of composite material, can fly as high as 25,000 feet and zip along at between 20 and 65 mph, making it just the thing for reconnaissance missions. Earlier this fall, the Florida robotics company won a $4.5 million contract from the US Army's Rapid Equipping Force to produce 36 Maverics for an urgent, but undisclosed, need. Training the Joint Special Operations Task Force to use Maveric started earlier this month, according to Prioria, and fully-equipped delivery is expected in December. Maveric weighs just 2.5 pounds and can be contained within a 6-inch tube. There’s no assembly required to prepare it for use, and it can be launched in less than 5 minutes by a single soldier. Once it reaches 100 meters, it’s silent to those on the ground. The battery’s only good for about an hour, but it takes just 30 seconds to swap a dead pack for a fresh one and have it ready to fly again. The drone is retrieved with a net.

11/27/13: The New York Times reports the Pakistani military deployed its first fleet of domestically developed drones on Monday. The new Burraq and Shahpar drones will be used by Pakistan's army and air force, the military said in a statement. It was unclear whether the aircraft are armed or unarmed, and military officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Pakistan has struggled with a lack of precision munitions and advanced targeting technology, according to Pakistani military officials and civilians involved in the domestic drone industry. Even if Pakistan had the technology, the small drones it has developed would have trouble carrying the kinds of missiles fired by the American aircraft. The Pakistani drones also have much more limited range than those developed by the US. The announcement coincided with a move by the Pakistani police in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province to prevent activists who were protesting against American drone strikes from blocking trucks carrying NATO troop supplies to and from Afghanistan. The federal government has also criticized American drone strikes, but the actions by the police on Monday indicated that the government had decided to intervene to stop the NATO blockade in order to avert a dispute with the US and other NATO countries.

November 22, 2013

China successfully flew a stealth drone for the first time on Thursday, state media said, citing eyewitness reports. A drone, called "Sharp Sword" by the media, made a test flight for around 20 minutes in Chengdu, reports said. China has been developing stealth aircraft in recent years, including J-20 and J-31 stealth fighters.

Now, thanks to a EU-funded project called MAC-II, it is now possible produce a forecast, analogous to meteorological forecast, but for air pollution. What makes it truly unique is that it combines global and local information. Indeed, by combining state-of-the-art computer models of the atmosphere, such as used for our daily weather forecasts, with satellite and in-situ observations, they are now providing daily forecasts of the composition of the air around the globe with a special focus on Europe.

A new modelling technique has been developed that could eliminate the need to build costly prototypes, which are used to test engineering structures such as aeroplanes. Most engineering structures, for example airplane landing gear, jet engines and gearboxes, involve friction and impact among their components. Traditionally these harsh phenomena are difficult to design for and introduce a great deal of uncertainty in the final product. The new research offers an alternative view on this problem by providing a modelling technique that allows for more accurate predictions than methods currently available. The proposed method also offers a better understanding of contact mechanics, which might be used to achieve a better design.

November 18, 2013

Foreign Policy discusses the miltiary of 2030 and the High Speed Strike Weapon (HSSW). The HSSW is a hypersonic missile concept suitable for future bomber and fighter aircraft. Skunk Works is leveraging its proven experience in high Mach systems to provide an affordable, practical and compact solution. The HSSW will enable a responsive strike capability on time-critical, heavily defended targets and achieves high survivability through altitude, speed and stealth.

Small, tactical drones may have a new role in military strikes after Northrop Grumman’s catapult-launched Bat demonstrated an electronic attack capability for the first time in new tests. With its 12-foot wingspan, the low-flying Bat was able to jam radar during tests. That means the Pentagon will soon have the option of deploying a flexible, largely undetectable drone with radar-jamming capability to protect manned aircraft against radar and surface-to-air missile guidance systems.

Faster, smaller electronics are one step closer with researchers from The Australian National University successfully making the first room temperature lasers from gallium arsenide nanowires.

Iran unveiled a new aircraft Monday that it says is the biggest drone yet to be developed in the Islamic Republic, capable of staying aloft for up to 30 hours. Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan said the reconnaissance and combat drone Fotros has a range of 1,250 miles. The earlier Shahed-129 drone is reported to have a similar range, but can only stay aloft 24 hours. "This drone is able to carry out reconnaissance missions and carry air-to-surface rockets for combat operations," the official IRNA news agency quoted Dehghan as saying. Dehghan said scientists at Iranian Aircraft Manufacturing Industries, affiliated to Iran's Defense Ministry, have designed and developed the drone. He said the country has achieved self-sufficiency in building drones but didn't elaborate.

11/18/13: The Miami Herald reports a Navy guided missile cruiser hit by a malfunctioning drone during a training exercise returned to San Diego, where investigators will assess the damage and determine what went wrong, a Navy official said Sunday. Two sailors were treated for minor burns after the USS Chancellorsville was struck by the unmanned aircraft during radar testing Saturday afternoon, off Point Mugu in Southern California. Lt. Lenaya Rotklein of the US Third Fleet said the drone — which was 13 feet long, 1 foot in diameter and had a wingspan of nearly 6 feet — hit the ship's left, or port, side. She said investigators at Naval Base San Diego are assessing the damage and determining why the drone malfunctioned. About 300 crew members were aboard the ship. The Navy could not say how the two sailors were injured. Rotklein identified the aerial drone as a BQM-74 series, manufactured by Aerospace giant Northrop Grumman Corp. She said the Navy makes frequent use of the unmanned aircraft in testing for combat and weapons systems. According to the company website, the drones can simulate enemy missiles or airplanes.

November 17, 2013

DARPA has focused on developing a program to make sure that the Navy is not “outsticked” by China as US forces re-balance to the Pacific. China’s development of the DF-21D ASBM (Anti-Ship Ballistic Missile), technically a cruise missile dubbed the “carrier killer,” has raised alarms on Capitol Hill. Rep. Randy Forbes told the RealClearDefense website last week that that the Navy’s main anti-ship missile, the Harpoon, “does not have the range or survivability” to match the threat from the Chinese Navy.

Researchers have created tiny holograms using a "metasurface" capable of the ultra-efficient control of light, representing a potential new technology for advanced sensors, high-resolution displays and information processing. The metasurface, thousands of V-shaped nanoantennas formed into an ultrathin gold foil, could make possible "planar photonics" devices and optical switches small enough to be integrated into computer chips for information processing, sensing and telecommunications.

A fragile quantum memory state has been held stable at room temperature for a "world record" 39 minutes - overcoming a key barrier to ultrafast computers. "Qubits" of information encoded in a silicon system persisted for almost 100 times longer than ever before. Quantum systems are notoriously fickle to measure and manipulate, but if harnessed could transform computing. The new benchmark was set by an international team led by Mike Thewalt of Simon Fraser University, Canada.

November 14, 2013

Invisibility cloaking is no longer the stuff of science fiction: two researchers have demonstrated an effective invisibility cloak that is thin, scalable and adaptive to different types and sizes of objects. Their experimental demonstration effectively cloaked a metal cylinder from radio waves using one layer of loop antennas. The system can be scaled up to cloak larger objects using more loops, and the loops could become printed and flat, like a blanket or skin. Currently the antenna loops must be manually attuned to the electromagnetic frequency they need to cancel, but in future they could function both as sensors and active antennas, adjusting to different waves in real time, much like the technology behind noise-cancelling headphones.

Welcome to the age of supercomputing for everyone. IBM will announce that Watson, the computing system that beat all the humans on “Jeopardy!” two years ago, will be available in a form more than twice as powerful via the Internet. Companies, academics and individual software developers will be able to use it at a small fraction of the previous cost, drawing on IBM’s specialists in fields like computational linguistics to build machines that can interpret complex data and better interact with humans.

Nuclear scientists are being urged by the former UN weapons inspector Hans Blix to develop thorium as a new fuel. Mr Blix says that the radioactive element may prove much safer in reactors than uranium. It is also more difficult to use thorium for the production of nuclear weapons. His comments will add to growing levels of interest in thorium, but critics warn that developing new reactors could waste public funds.

Stingrays swim through water with such ease that researchers from the University at Buffalo and Harvard University are studying how their movements could be used to design more agile and fuel-efficient unmanned underwater vehicles.

November 10, 2013

11/10/13: The BBC reports the US Navy has christened the first of its new Ford-class of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers. The new super-carrier, which is only 70% complete, is named after late US President Gerald Ford. It is the first of 10 carriers designed to get more fighter planes into the sky more quickly, but with 1,000 fewer crew members. The USS Gerald R Ford is reportedly about 22% over budget, at a cost of almost $13bn. It comes at a time of growing budget pressures for the US. The carrier, which will weigh 100,000 tons, is reportedly due to be finished in 2016 when sea trials are likely to begin. The ship is said to be the most technologically advanced aircraft carrier the US has built. Delays with the ship's completion mean the US Navy will be reduced to a 10-carrier fleet, following the USS Enterprise's deactivation last year. Fewer crew members mean the Ford-class carrier is expected to save $4bn over the ship's 50-year life span. It is designed to increase its ability to launch fighter jets and helicopters by 25%, generate more electrical power and allow the use of unmanned drones.

November 09, 2013

A Texas company says it has made the first metal gun using a 3-D printer, taking the debate over people's emerging ability to create their own firearms to a new level. Solid Concepts wanted to show that 3-D printing is more than just hobbyists churning out plastic doodads -- it's a viable option for serious commercial use. Solid Concepts used a specialized, high-end printer whose cost would be out of reach of most people.

The prototype Titan Arm was created using 3D-printed components, computer-controlled machinery and design software that amounted to an affordable $2,000 in material costs, which is 50 times less than comparable exoskeletons on the market. The arm has the ability to give the wearer up to 40 pounds of lifting power.

A new compact sensor system based on an LED pumped polymer laser detects explosive vapors quickly and sensitively. This is a promising approach for the detection of hazards, for instance in humanitarian land mine removal.

New successes for the Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS). MEADS has demonstrated two target intercepts – a tactical ballistic missile in front and an aircraft behind – at the same time.

11/9/13: The LA Times reports the FAA published a plan Thursday that sets the stage for law enforcement agencies, businesses, universities and hobbyists to begin flying remotely piloted aircraft, better known as drones, in the United States by 2015. The 74-page document immediately drew flak from some privacy advocates, who say that the FAA needs to clarify how the government and private users can use video and other data from surveillance drones, and how long it can be stored. FAA Administrator Michael Huerta estimated that 7,500 small drones could be aloft within five years if federal regulations are written on schedule. He said the chief concern was requiring drone designs and pilot training to help prevent unmanned planes from colliding with other aircraft. More than 80 law enforcement agencies have FAA permission to fly drones, and universities are testing drones for weather forecasting and agricultural and industrial uses. By the end of this year, the FAA is scheduled to choose test sites in six states where manufacturers can bring drones for evaluation by federal safety experts, Huerta said. Twenty-four states — including California, Florida, Nevada and Arizona — have applied to host the tests.

November 07, 2013

A European Union-funded research project spearheaded by the Swedish Defense Research Agency FOI aims to sniff out the telltale signs of bomb-making through the sewer system. EMPHASIS plans to take a two-pronged approach to finding explosives while they're still being assembled. It would position sensors throughout sewers to alert authorities when traces of chemicals used to make explosives get flushed down the drain, while different sensors above the ground monitor for elevated amounts of gas byproducts of the bomb-making process in the area. Together, this data could help police find explosives while they're still being manufactured.

Researchers have developed a novel method to rapidly and cheaply make electrical circuits by printing them with commodity inkjet printers and off-the-shelf materials. For about $300 in equipment costs, anyone can produce working electrical circuits in the 60 seconds it takes to print them.

A breakthrough in quantum cryptography demonstrates that information can be encrypted and then decrypted with complete security using the combined power of quantum theory and relativity - allowing the sender to dictate the unveiling of coded information without any possibility of intrusion or manipulation. Scientists sent encrypted data between pairs of sites in Geneva and Singapore, kept "perfectly secure" for fifteen milliseconds - putting into practice what cryptographers call a 'bit commitment' protocol, based on theoretical work by study co-author Dr Adrian Kent.

South Korea's spy agency said Monday that North Korea was using Russian technology to develop electromagnetic pulse weapons aimed at paralysing military electronic equipment south of the border.

The MQ-8C Fire scout, an improvement over the last version of the Navy's MQ-8B drone, recently took off from Point Mogu.

Late last month, the future of spaceflight -- a mini-space shuttle dubbed the Dream Chaser -- made its first unpowered glide-flight. It was highly successful, at least until it touched down on the runway at Edwards Air Force Base and promptly flipped over onto its back. Ignominious start though it may be, it's just the beginning. Designer Sierra Nevada Corporation plans to quickly repair the vehicle and fly it again. A second Dream Chaser is under construction.

11/7/13: The BBC reports the threat of another asteroid strike like the one that hit Russia earlier this year is much higher than was previously thought, a study suggests. Researchers have found that space rocks of a similar size to the one that exploded over Chelyabinsk are hurtling into the Earth's atmosphere with surprising frequency. Scientists say early warning systems need to be put in place. The asteroid that exploded over Russia on 15 February this year was estimated to be about 19m-wide. It hit the atmosphere with energy estimated to be equivalent to 500,000 tonnes of TNT, sending a shockwave twice around the globe. It caused widespread damage and injured more than 1,000 people. Now though, scientists say there could be many more space rocks like this one on a collision course with the Earth. An international team looked at the last 20 years of data collected from sensors used by the US government and infrasound sensors positioned around the globe. These detectors are in place to detect the threat of nuclear weapons, but they can also capture the blasts caused by asteroid impacts. The researchers found that during this time about 60 asteroids up to 20m in size had smashed into the Earth's atmosphere: far more than was previously thought

November 06, 2013

11/06/13: The New York Times reports a congressional panel created long before the recent revelations about government electronic spying operations issued a blistering report on Tuesday charging that the intelligence world’s research-and-development efforts are disorganized and unfocused. An unclassified version of the report, based on two years of work by independent experts and two officials from inside the agencies, concludes that the US is losing its technological superiority over its rivals, which are gaining “asymmetric advantages” by making their own investments in such efforts and, in some cases, stealing American inventions. In a separate white paper on cybercapabilities — an area in which the Defense Department, the NSA and the USCYBERCOM have made big investments — the panel, the National Commission for the Review of the Research and Development Programs of the US Intelligence Community, concludes that President Obama’s efforts to differentiate the roles of competing agencies have largely failed. One member of the commission, Gilman Louie, a venture capitalist who was the founder of In-Q-Tel, a private fund that was set up by intelligence agencies to capitalize on advances in Silicon Valley, said commission members found that intelligence agency employees had little understanding of how Mr. Obama’s efforts would affect their work. Mr. Louie also said the intelligence agencies were heavily focused on the development of offensive cyberweapons because “it is easier and more intellectually interesting to play offense than defense.”

November 05, 2013

11/05/13: The BBC reports India has successfully launched a spacecraft to the Red Planet - with the aim of becoming the fourth space agency to reach Mars. The Mars Orbiter Mission took off at 09:08 GMT from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre on the country's east coast. The head of India's space agency told the BBC the mission would demonstrate the technological capability to reach Mars orbit and carry out experiments. The spacecraft is set to travel for 300 days, reaching Mars orbit in 2014. If the satellite orbits the Red Planet, India's space agency will become the fourth in the world after those of the US, Russia and Europe to undertake a successful Mars mission. In order for the MOM to embark on the right trajectory for its 300-day, 780-million km journey, it must carry out its final orbital burn by 30 November. Some observers are viewing the launch of the MOM, also known by the informal name of Mangalyaan (Mars-craft), as the latest salvo in a burgeoning space race between the Asian powers of India, China, Japan, South Korea and others.

November 02, 2013

A newly announced plane by Lockheed's Skunk Works will be designated the SR-72; it will clearly be the logical successor to the SR-71 Blackbird. A beefy two-engine system, comprised of a traditional jet and a scramjet, will combine to give the SR-72 a cruising speed of Mach 6. That's twice as fast as the SR-71. That speed will be the SR-72's chief means of out-maneuvering the opposition. Not only will this new hypersonic aircraft be capable of taking a peek at the bad guys before they can run for cover, it'll be able to carry out precision attacks as well. Lockheed is looking to have a working demonstration version of the SR-72 ready by 2018, which is actually a pretty tight timeline, considering that hypersonice engines haven't yet become what you might call reliable. If the SR-72 does materialize by then it will be equipped with a new hypersonic missile system, saddled with the somewhat mundane code name "high-speed strike weapon."

The Pentagon this week edged closer to mounting missile-destroying lasers on unmanned and manned aircraft, awarding $26 million to defense contractors to develop the technology. Under the name Project Endurance, DARPA awareded Northrop Grumman $14.6 million and Lockheed Martin $11.4 million in contracts for the effort. The research will “develop technology for pod-mounted lasers to protect a variety of airborne platforms from emerging and legacy electro-optical IR guided surface-to-air missiles,” according to DARPA’s 2014 budget request. The project focuses on “miniaturizing component technologies, developing high-precision target tracking, identification, and lightweight agile beam control to support target engagement,” as well as “the phenomenology of laser-target interactions and associated threat vulnerabilities.”

There's a new corporation out there called Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, and contrary to what you might believe, Elon Musk had nothing to do with it being formed. This crowdsourcing endeavor has been wrangling an impressive list of partners, all of whom are hell-bent on seeing the Hyperloop come into being. One such partner, computer modeling and simulation firm Ansys, has already begun Hyperloop feasibility studies. It is their belief that, thanks to the unique nature of crowdsourcing, we could see a working scale model of the Hyperloop by the beginning of 2015.

October 31, 2013

After some four years and 4.8 million euros ($6.6 million) of investment, NATO and Russia report they can now foil the bombers by mass screening of crowds. The system uses a series of sensors and microwave scanning technology to detect anomalies in molecular structures as commuters pass unaware. NATO said the scanning can be done "in full respect of international security laws," with Russia soon due to begin testing response scenarios in the St. Petersburg metro. Described as their "common child" by Russian NATO diplomat Vladimir Dyakov, the goal now is for industry to scale up the system in the next two years and then see it commercialised in major metro systems, airports and large sports stadia.

A team of researchers at TU Vienna has now managed to create a new kind of quantum cascade laser with an output of one watt of terahertz radiation, breaking the previous world record of about 0.25 watts. Terahertz waves are invisible, but incredibly useful; they can penetrate many materials which are opaque to visible light and they are perfect for detecting a variety of molecules. Terahertz radiation can be produced using tiny quantum cascade lasers, only a few millimetres wide. This special kind of lasers consists of tailor made semiconductor layers on a nanometer scale.

Sprint Corp. says it is speeding up its wireless network with "groundbreaking advances" in smartphone technology that ultimately will reach speeds that could match the ultra-high-speed Google Fiber service. A new service called Sprint Spark will download applications, photos and videos more than 10 times faster than Sprint's current fastest service, which it is still building.

Exploratory research on revolutionary new types of nuclear fuel pellets that would be safer in the event of a nuclear disaster has yielded promising results, according to a team of UT and ORNL scientists. The scientists investigated new materials that could be used to encase uranium-bearing fuel as an alternative to zirconium alloys, which have been used as the outer layer of nuclear fuel pellets for the last 50 years. Using sophisticated computer analyses, the team identified the positive impact of several possible materials that exhibit resistance to high-temperature oxidation and failure, on reactor core evolution, thereby buying more time to cope in the event of a nuclear accident.

October 29, 2013

The Navy's newest warship slipped out of dry dock this week into the waters of Maine, marking a new era for war fighting at sea. The USS Zumwalt, the first of the DDG-1000 class of destroyers, is longer, faster and carries state-of-the-art weapons that will allow it to destroy targets at more than 60 miles, according to the Navy. At 610 feet long and 81 feet wide, the Zumwalt is longer and thinner than the USS Arizona, a battleship sunk at Pearl Harbor. But it weighs about half as much. Much of the ship's superstructure is wrapped in a huge, canopy made of lightweight carbon fiber composite. The canopy and the rest of the ship is built on angles that help make it 50 times harder to spot on radar than an ordinary destroyer.

The Navy is gearing up for deployment and a new round of tests of its Surface Ship Torpedo Defense System — a high tech system designed to protect aircraft carriers by locating, tracking and intercepting incoming torpedoes. The upcoming tests, slated to take place on the USS George H.W. Bush, are designed as a follow on to initial end-to-end testing of an early prototype model aboard the Bush this past May. The Navy plans to equip all aircraft carriers with SSTD by 2035. The SSTD system, which consists of a sensor, processor and small interceptor missile, is a first-of-its-kind “hard kill” countermeasure for ships and carriers designed to defeat torpedoes.

Under a $7 million-dollar grant funded by the US Office of Naval Research, engineers at Purdue University and the Colorado School of Mines are developing a system that harnesses the power of sound to safely detect whether an explosive is high or low-yield at a safe distance away. The system uses a phased acoustic array to focus an intense sonic beam at a suspicious device, while at the same time, an aimed laser vibrometer records how the object's casing is vibrating to reveal information about what is inside the container.

A common blue pigment used in the £5 note could have an important role to play in the development of a quantum computer, according to a new paper. The pigment, copper phthalocyanine (CuPc), which is similar to the light harvesting section of the chlorophyll molecule, is a low-cost organic semiconductor that is found in many household products. Crucially, it can be processed into a thin film that can be readily used for device fabrication, a significant advantage over similar materials that have been studied previously.

Research into a new type of laser will dramatically improve future devices used for sensing and in communications, according to scientists at the University of Bath. Researchers demonstrated their work into bosonic lasers which emit terahertz radiation. Such lasers have been around for years, commonly found in satellites, for environmental monitoring, astronomy, security and non-destructive testing, imaging, and medical applications. But they are considered bulky, impractical and expensive. Through this latest study, the researchers demonstrate how such lasers could be exploited to improve their performance and, potentially, lead to the miniaturisation of future technological devices. The research showcases how, in the future, new 'bosonic lasers' emitting terahertz radiation could be fine-tuned to vary or minimise the power required by the laser or to alter the intensity of terahertz radiation. Scientists are excited by terahertz technologies as they provide unprecedented sensing capabilities across biology, pharmacy, medicine, material science, environment monitoring, security, astronomy and communications.

October 24, 2013

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) intends to hold the Cyber Grand Challenge (CGC)—the first-ever tournament for fully automatic network defense systems. DARPA envisions teams creating automated systems that would compete against each other to evaluate software, test for vulnerabilities, generate security patches and apply them to protected computers on a network. To succeed, competitors must bridge the expert gap between security software and cutting-edge program analysis research. The winning team would receive a cash prize of $2 million.

NASA's Lunar Laser Communication Demonstration (LLCD) has made history using a pulsed laser beam to transmit data over the 239,000 miles between the moon and Earth at a record-breaking download rate of 622 megabits per second (Mbps). LLCD is NASA's first system for two-way communication using a laser instead of radio waves. It also has demonstrated an error-free data upload rate of 20 Mbps transmitted from the primary ground station in New Mexico to the spacecraft currently orbiting the moon.

Microelectromechanical systems, known as MEMS, are ubiquitous in modern military systems such as gyroscopes for navigation, tiny microphones for lightweight radios, and medical biosensors for assessing the wounded. Such applications benefit from the portability, low power, and low cost of MEMS devices. Although the use of MEMS sensors is now commonplace, they still operate many orders of magnitude below their theoretical performance limits. This is due to two obstacles: thermal fluctuations and random quantum fluctuations, a barrier known as the standard quantum limit. DARPA's Optical Radiation Cooling and Heating in Integrated Devices (ORCHID) program seeks to overcome the latter obstacle to MEMS device performance. Overcoming the standard quantum limit, or Heisenberg limit, requires delicate engineering of the quantum state of the device. ORCHID is combining micro-optical and mechanical components into a single "optomechanical" device. Paired with novel measurement techniques, these devices can perform beyond the standard quantum limit.

Solar cells that produce electricity 24/7, not just when the sun is shining. Mobile phones with built-in power cells that recharge in seconds and work for weeks between charges. These are just two of the possibilities raised by a novel supercapacitor design invented by material scientists at Vanderbilt University. It is the first supercapacitor that is made out of silicon so it can be built into a silicon chip along with the microelectronic circuitry that it powers. In fact, it should be possible to construct these power cells out of the excess silicon that exists in the current generation of solar cells, sensors, mobile phones and a variety of other electromechanical devices, providing a considerable cost savings.

Google has announced a new initiative called Project Shield which the company describes as a program dedicated to helping smaller entities fend off Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. In particular, the company says, it's looking to help promote freedom of expression by assisting at-risk sites from going down due to DDoS attacks.

At Japan's University of Tokyo, doctoral student Huai-Chien Chang has proposed the redeployment of ICBMs — as vehicles of disaster relief. These humanitarian ICBMs, loaded with everything from food and water to emergency generators and fuel would be capable of reaching any corner of the globe in a single hour, just like their deadly predecessors.

10/24/13: Foreign Policy published an article by P.W. Singer about why the Pentagon needs to think big and look to the past in order to prepare for the chaotic technowars of the future. Tools are shifting, and with it come the kinds of questions not faced by strategists trying to stay on top of a geopolitical order since almost a century back. Much as the submarine, tank, and airplane created massive disruptions both on and off the battlefield in the decades surrounding World War I, a new series of science fiction-like technologies have recently become real and, like back then, are in the midst of shaking up the system of war. If the US wants to hold on to its grip on the top, just spending more is no longer doable, nor the right answer. Much as both military and civilian leaders in the British Empire had to rethink certain assumptions about war, our old assumptions need to be re-examined today.

October 21, 2013

10/21/13: The New York Times reports from the moment Turkey announced plans two years ago to acquire a long-range missile defense system, the multibillion-dollar contract from a key NATO member appeared to be an American company’s to lose. For years, Turkey’s military had relied on NATO-supplied Patriot missiles, built by the American companies. Its selection last month of a little-known Chinese defense company, China Precision Machinery Export-Import Corporation, stunned the military-industrial establishment in Washington and Brussels. The sale was especially unusual because the Chinese missile defense system, known as the HQ-9, would be difficult to integrate with existing NATO equipment. China Precision is also subject to sanctions from the US for selling technologies that the US says could help Iran, Syria and North Korea develop unconventional weapons. A State Department spokeswoman said this month that American officials had expressed to the Turkish government “serious concerns” about the deal, which has not yet been signed. Industry executives and arms-sales analysts say the Chinese probably beat out their more established rivals by significantly undercutting them on price, offering their system at $3 billion. Nonetheless, Turkey’s selection of a Chinese state-owned manufacturer is a breakthrough for China, a nation that has set its sights on moving up the value chain in arms technology and establishing itself as a credible competitor in the global weapons market. The Stockholm institute released a report this year on global weapons transfers that found the volume of Chinese conventional weapons exports — which included high-end aircraft, missiles, ships and artillery — jumped by 162 percent from 2008 to 2012, compared with the previous five years. Pakistan is the leading customer. The institute now estimates that China is the fifth-largest arms exporter in the world, ahead of Britain. From 2003 to 2007, China ranked eighth.

October 19, 2013

Robots armed with automatic weapons, anti-tank missiles and even grenade launchers are marching ever closer to the battlefield now that they’ve shown they can actually hit what they’re supposed to. Four robotics companies — HDT Robotics, iRobot, Northrop Grumman and QinetiQ — recently ran their M240 machine gun-armed robots through a live-fire demo at Fort Benning in what has been dubbed the “Robotic Rodeo.” The point was to give the brass a chance to see just how viable such systems are.

A team of researchers at MIT have been working this year on a system that can track people through walls with impressive accuracy using radio waves. The team showed the system earlier this month. IDG News Service made a video of the demo, which took place at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Laboratory (CSAIL). The system is still in a proof of concept stage but the team spoke with reps from wireless and component companies during an open house recently. The technology uses low-power signals to track human movement and to decipher motions behind walls. The accuracy is higher than even state of the art Wi-Fi localization.

October 12, 2013

Army researchers are developing an advanced military uniform that would turn a special ops commando into Iron Man. The Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit, or TALOS, will deliver “superhuman strength with greater ballistic protection” by providing a powered exoskeleton to haul heavier equipment, liquid armor capable of stopping bullets, built-in computers and night vision, as well as the ability to monitor vital signs and apply wound-sealing foam. Put together, the capabilities would make the already elite Special Operation Forces nearly invincible in the field, says the Army. (repeat from Thursday)

A newly-unearthed DARPA grant competition from this spring shows the military construct's goal: the development of a cheap mind-reading headset which can feed EEG data from its wearer to a smartphone app. EEG readings are the basis for a number of consumer products which allow users to control objects with their minds.

The Navy and Lockheed Martin recently tested an airborne-relay sensor and networking technology that allows ships to locate and destroy threats and targets that would otherwise be beyond the radar horizon, service and industry officials said. Called the Naval Integrated Fire Control – Counter Air, or NIFC-CA, an airborne sensor identifies a target beyond the horizon and networks that information into the ship’s fire control system, allowing the ship’s radar to track and destroy targets at much greater distances, Navy and Lockheed officials said. Therefore, should things continue to develop with NIFC-CA, the technology brings the possibility of greatly extending the protective envelope surrounding ships at sea.

October 10, 2013

In an effort to provide its Special Operation Forces with enhanced mobility, protection and surveillance abilities, US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) challenged researchers to develop a suit that would combine nanotechnology with the endurance of Kevlar for the ultimate suit of body armor. The idea for the armor was first inspired by the work of MIT professor Gareth McKinley, who has been working on the development of liquid armor since 2002.

The silk of the brown recluse spider could be the key to creating new super-sticky films and wafer-thin electronics and sensors for medical implants that are highly compatible with the human body. While the silk ribbons have the outstanding strength and toughness of standard spider silk, their flat structure makes it possible to study the material's molecular structure in great detail and investigate what gives it its strength. A team found that the extreme thinness of the ribbons, which are up to 10 nanometres wide and only a few tens of nanometers thick, combined with its stiffness and the ability to adapt to the shapes of surfaces is what gives it its unprecedented adhesive properties.

Having a curved battery is a necessity, which is why LG Chem will be mass-producing them next month. LG has also created a type of cable battery for devices that can bend, be worn, be tied in a knot and be submerged in water. All these new batteries won’t be found on drug store shelves next to Duracells, but they will offer greater range when creating new technologies.

Scientists working to produce the world's fastest, most powerful computers have moved a step closer to creating a practical prototype using microwaves – by shielding the atoms driving this new generation of computers from the harmful effects of noise. Microwaves are already used in smart phone technology, but scientists are now looking at how they can harness microwaves so that atomic particles can be used to store and process data on a new type of computer called a quantum computer.

Long-distance communication increasingly relies on networks of fiber-optic cables that carry data encoded in nimble beams of light. Conventional computer circuits, however, still use relatively sluggish electronic circuits to process this data. Researchers now developed a device that could help computers reach light speed. Their tiny mechanical system can switch a light signal on or off extremely quickly, potentially enabling all-optical computing and simplifying the interface between electronic and optical networks. Various optical switching technologies already exist, including microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). These switches, however, take microseconds to flip from one state to another, far too slow for a computer application. This device is a much smaller nanoelectromechanical system (NEMS) that can switch in billionths of a second, with virtually no data loss.

October 09, 2013

10/09/13: The Miami Herald reports electrical problems have stalled the planned opening this fall of the nation's new $1.7 billion epicenter for fighting global cyber threats — a Utah data center filled with super-powered computers designed to store massive amounts of classified information. The Army Corps of Engineers discovered the problems during tests ahead of the scheduled Oct. 1 opening of the center south of Salt Lake City, on a National Guard base, Corps spokeswoman Diedra Cordell said in an emailed statement. The facility will be the National Security Agency's largest data storage center in the US, constantly using 65 megawatts of electricity — enough to power 33,000 houses. But what exactly will be happening there remains shrouded in mystery. There is no visible marker bearing the facility's name and operator, and the NSA has been tight-lipped about what they'll be doing there. The Corps, which is in charge of construction, says experts are working to correct the electrical problems. Cordell did not provide details about the exact nature of the issue, or say if it has caused any major damage. NSA spokeswoman Vanee Vines acknowledged the problems in an email but declined to provide any more information.

September 30, 2013

NASA is planning to launch a 3D printer into space next year to help astronauts manufacture spare parts and tools in zero gravity. It will be the first time a 3D printer has been used in space and could help reduce the costs of future missions. The device will have to withstand lift-off vibrations and operate safely in an enclosed space station environment. Nasa has chosen technology start-up Made in Space to make the microwave-sized printer.

Researchers at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and the Qatar Computing Research Institute have developed new tools that allow people with minimal programming skill to rapidly build cellphone applications that can help with disaster relief.

In an advance that could dramatically shrink particle accelerators for science and medicine, researchers used a laser to accelerate electrons at a rate 10 times higher than conventional technology in a nanostructured glass chip smaller than a grain of rice.

Over the last week Berchtesgaden has played host to some of the smartest emergency response robots in the world. Multiple real-world emergency scenarios were enacted, giving the 14 teams present a chance to show the world their robot's mettle. Three emergency scenarios were enacted: mobile handling of hazardous materials, underground rescue from a smoke-filled environment and urban recon and surveillance. Of the 14 teams competing, two walked away with the top honors. Team Telerob from aerospace company Cobham took two gold medals, as well as the silver for surveillance. The surveillance gold went to European Logistic Partners (ELP), who also took silver in the other two categories.

Firearm company TrackingPoint has developed a software that is integrated with its Precision Guided Firearms (PGF) to provide shooters with near perfect accuracy. The advanced target-tracking technology delivers on-point shots over a range of 1,200 yards. In order to provide an exact, accurate shot, TTX accounts for the coriolis effect, magnus, temperature, pressure and spin drift when aimed at the target. The software is displayed through TrackingPoint's Integrated Networked Tracking Scope, which also houses a compass, microphone, Wi-Fi server, batteries, ballistic calculator, laser rangefinder and filters for shooting in bright or dim light.

September 25, 2013

09/25/13: After getting a little behind over the last week on Tech Updates, here are a chunk from the last week or so to process:

The question of how human societies evolve from small groups to the huge, anonymous and complex societies of today has been answered mathematically, accurately matching the historical record on the emergence of complex states in the ancient world. Intense warfare is the evolutionary driver of large complex societies, according to new research from a trans-disciplinary team at the University of Connecticut, the University of Exeter in England, and the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS).

A temperature sensor developed by researchers at the University of Cambridge could improve the efficiency, control and safety of high-temperature engines. The sensor minimises drift –degradation of the sensor which results in faulty temperature readings and reduces the longevity of engine components.

DARPA has just announced its latest ambition: DARPA plans to develop a hypersonic space plane capable of reaching orbit at a cost that is less than one tenth of current orbit-capable vehicles. The idea is still in its concept phase.

Popular Science article on why living cells are the future of data processing.

The two government entities are working in tandem to create the device, called FINDER, or Finding Individuals for Disaster and Emergency Response, for use in finding individuals who are still alive after a major disasters. FINDER prototypes were tested in over 65 simulated disasters by two Urban Search and Rescue teams, with great success. The portable device is capable of detecting a heartbeat up to 100 feet away when out in the open, and is able to penetrate concrete, rebar and other types of material as well.

Fascinating test of dropping a 2,000 lb smart bomb from a B-1B onto small sea-bourne craft.

The third Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) military communication satellite was launched. The AEHF system provides vastly improved global, survivable, highly secure, protected communications for strategic command and tactical warfighters operating on ground, sea and air platforms. The system also serves international partners including Canada, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

The dream of igniting a self-sustained fusion reaction with high yields of energy, a feat likened to creating a miniature star on Earth, is getting closer to becoming reality, according to the authors of a new review article. Researchers at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) engaged in a collaborative project led by the Department of Energy's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, report that while there is at least one significant obstacle to overcome before achieving the highly stable, precisely directed implosion required for ignition, they have met many of the demanding challenges leading up to that goal since experiments began in 2010.

Hitachi has developed explosives detection technology to automatically inspect for explosive substances adhering to luggage to strengthen security in public facilities such as airports. As a result of this technology, inspection of carry-on luggage which previously took time as it required an inspector to wipe the luggage can be carried out in a minimum of approximately five seconds. By combining this explosive detection equipment with the conventionally installed X-ray inspection equipment, it will be possible to successively conduct inspection for both dangerous items as well as explosive substances without slowing down the flow of visitors to important facilities.

Marines will get their hands this November on the Big Dog — a robot built to scale hillsides, walk through brush and even crosss creeks all while carrying 400 pounds of gear. Engineers will hand over the Big Dog to a group of Marines this November to test at Fort Devens, Mass., to see how well Marines can operate the robot and test how it operates under simulated combat conditions.

Legged Squad Support System (Big Dog 2), which was designed as a rough terrain pack mule capable of hauling 400 pounds of supplies over 20 miles at a time on a single tank of fuel, is an extremely appealing addition to the military. Using computer vision, the four-legged robot autonomously follows its human leader and can be programmed to travel to a designated location using GPS. Though the LS3 can also last a whole 24 hour mission, the current model is distressingly noisy, thanks to a gas-powered hydraulic pump. Also, although the LS3 is bulletproof over most of its body, one crucial place isn't: the head area, where many of its sensors are situated. With an additional $10 million in funding, DARPA hopes the robot will eventually be immune to small arms fire over its entire body.

To give their pilots the most realist experience possible, the USAF is working with Boeing to convert some of its old F-16s into pilotless drones that can actually engage in a real dogfight with their pilots. The new drone version is called the QF-16 and can pull up to 8Gs while flying at Mach 1.47. It's controlled by two pilots on the ground. So far Boeing has built six of the drones.

September 22, 2013

09/22/13: The New York Times reports cars that can park, brake at a sign of danger and navigate in traffic are on their way to dealers’ showrooms, turning science-fiction fantasies about consumer-owned self-driving vehicles into a new reality. But as private investors have been pushing ahead to develop the systems needed for these new robotic machines, one crucial innovator has been largely out of the loop: the United States military. The armed forces have lagged on deploying their own versions of unmanned road vehicles, despite goals to create new machines that could be used in place of “boots on the ground” in conflicts. Restrictions on government spending and technological challenges have left the military with virtually no chance of meeting the goal set by Congress to have a third of the military’s combat fleet consist of unmanned vehicles by 2015, military experts said. The military’s failure to lead the way in self-driving ground vehicles is ironic, given that today’s commercial advances have their roots in research originally sponsored by DARPA. A decade ago, Darpa offered a series of “grand challenges” to private researchers, which helped push the technology forward.